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Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 10:39 pm  Country rankings are okay. It is neat to be able to compete for an award sometimes and the list serves as the only tool for certain things, such as searching for player countries outside of random map clicking. However, there are several purposes it is not suited for. 1. Player competition. The game needs a new measurement for players beyond data for single countries or enterprises. Many (most?) players set their goal on building an empire, often spread throughout the Sim-galaxy. For all the work these players put into their empires, there is no rankings reflective of their efforts. 2. War Preparation Analysis Another player on the forum pointed out that there is little way to predict the forces available to an opponent on the eve of a pvp war. A player faced with an attack can rightly mobilize the means to defend himself with resources throughout that player's empire. There should be some way to have a rough idea of what an opponent has available. Information that any President's intelligence would have access to. My idea for player power rankings is to measure four important elements of player power and total it to a Total Power Level. These elements are Military Power, Space Power, Wealth Power, and Financial Power. In addition to this information available on a rankings page, I propose these also be viewable to all in the countries and enterprises associated with each player. On the rankings page, players should be ranked by Total Power Level. 1. Military Power This looks at the total value of military assets the player has, held in countries and enterprises, and compiles it to give a player a military power level. This data is found already in every player's account status page. One important note, this value does not account for weapon or ammo quality. So know that this level is a very rough evaluation of military capability but will give you a ballpark estimate. I propose levels look something like: Level 1 0 - 5 Trillion in assets Level 2 5 - 10 Level 3 10 - 20 Level 4 20 - 40 Level 5 40 - 80 Level 6 80 - 160 Level 7 160 - 320 Level 8 320 - 640 and so on At each level the player has approximately twice the assets as the level below them. 2. Space Power This looks at the player's capability in space. Of interest to any potential opponent. This will look simply at the number of shuttles in service and is already findable on each player's direct trading page. As the measurement contributes to Total Power Level and, as a player has more shuttles available, diminishing returns for their usefulness sets in, this level will be limited to four levels. I propose: Level 1 1 - 25 shuttles Level 2 26 - 75 shuttles Level 3 76 - 150 shuttles Level 4 151 or more shuttles 3 Wealth Power This looks at the most liquid cash reserves available to a player. It is taken from the account status page, like Military Power, and looks at the sum of the "Total Cash" and "Total Loans Given" fields. I propose: Level 1 0 - 10 Trillion Level 2 10 - 20 Level 3 20 - 40 Level 4 40 - 80 Level 5 80 - 160 Level 6 160 - 320 Level 7 320 - 640 and so on 4. Financial Power This looks at the ability of the player's empire to generate income. Like some other data, it is taken from the account status page and is the sum of all the countries' "Profit/Loss" field. An important, and possibly controversial, distinction is that I do not recommend including enterprises in this calculation. The reason is that the countries' Profit/Loss adds directly to a countries financial position where that of an enterprise is calculated before country taxes, enterprise taxes, and other fees are assessed. Indeed, enterprise corporations located in the player's own countries would count the same income twice (tax for the country and profit for the enterprise). Unless a calculation is found that is more representative of their cash contributions to a player, I recommend they simply be omitted. I propose: Level 1 0 - 20 Billion in monthly income Level 2 20 - 40 Level 3 40 - 80 Level 4 80 - 160 Level 5 160 - 320 Level 6 320 - 640 Level 7 640 - 1280 and so on 5. Total Power Level After all elements are complied, a Total Power Level can be determined. A player could be ranked and displayed in their countries as: Military Power (MP) Level 3 Space Power (SP) Level 2 Wealth Power (WP) Level 2 Financial Power (FP) Level 2 Total Power Level (TPL) Level 9 Thanks for reading! Comments and suggestions are welcome.
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| Sunday, October 12, 2014 - 01:43 am Nice idea you got there. The only Problem I see is that with MP and WP there would be a new way to sneak around 'Security Settings'. I would agree if only the TPL would be shown for Ranking purposes, the others either only as it is now meaning the actual Rank someone has in Financial and Military or possible to put them 'Secured' so now aditional intel for other players you dont want them to have. Additionally FP should take into Account only Player's Entities that are out of Beginners Boost *hinthintandy*
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| Sunday, October 12, 2014 - 01:12 pm The premise is that security settings are a bit too secure. No country on Earth has the ability to check a box and hide their capabilities so utterly. A teenager could gather more information on a real world country's military with a casual search online than what is currently available to Sim-Presidents. Being able to (very) roughly estimate a Sim-Empire's military and wealth reserves seems well within the capabilities of any intelligence agency in a technological world. This suggestion has more of a dual-use goal of an overall player ranking, rather than single entities, and a base level of intelligence. Ideally, a more detailed intelligence feature would be available in the game allowing investment in spy satellites, human intelligence, and other intelligence-gathering assets to gain even a clearer picture of the competition. Until then, these estimates seem very reasonable to me.
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| Friday, October 17, 2014 - 10:52 pm Bumping above some non-suggestion board spam. More comments on this are welcome.
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| Saturday, October 18, 2014 - 08:57 pm I like your real-world applications for the game...personally i don't see any negatives.
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| Saturday, October 18, 2014 - 09:16 pm I like the idea personally. My only thought is that we cant throw to much info in because we don't want the new players to feel like they cant compete. Seeing top guys being worth quad-trillions or having overly massive numbers makes it seem like they cant achieve that and might turn some away. If anything take them and the GM should create additional rankings. We have the ones for top scores, why not top average monthly military, econ, and so on. Like i said i like the idea just thinking of the news.
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| Monday, October 20, 2014 - 07:26 pm I actually like this total power idea as its not just based on military power but based on all other assets that you have in the game, a very good idea that I thought could also replace the current war levels as well.
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| Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 04:57 pm This is still a good idea.
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| Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 07:21 pm I support Aries Power Rankings.
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| Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 07:25 pm I like this idea aswell. @ SS. I don't think so, atleasst not for my self. As it stands right now for ranking, i pick someone who is between 5 and 10 ranks higher then me, then work my arse off to get a better rank then them. ( right now, i am working on out ranking one of Aries's CEOs on LU. ) If this all was added, it would not only let me work on being best in the world but see how i compare to the universe and slowly work my way up. I would suggest maybe having it so one could separate the premiums for non-premium players though. Being able to see just how high up a non-premuim player can get compared to players to put $$ into the game, would i think, Help encourage newer plays to stay and work twice as hard on there nation / enterprise. But also i think this might encourage some of them to become premium members.
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| Monday, February 16, 2015 - 08:31 am Very nice
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| Wednesday, March 4, 2015 - 10:33 am Bumping this thread to further discussion on the topic. Aries pointed this out to me in another thread involving the gathering and displaying of stats. Please feel free to add suggestions for more "power rankings"
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| Wednesday, March 4, 2015 - 06:12 pm Some games are pay-to-win. Simcountry could become a pay-to-rank game. In multiple ways, one can use a credit card to get a high rank. How do we know if ranks demonstrate skill? Currently there is no way to know whether someone else's rank results mostly from skill, or from credit card use. Ranks would be more informative if they include how many gold coins each player has bought.
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| Wednesday, March 4, 2015 - 09:39 pm I eat card warriors for breakfast. Skill wins this game.
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| Thursday, March 5, 2015 - 10:49 am The deciding factor in Simcountry is and always will be skill. Spending money helps, mostly in terms of accelerating growth. It doesn't turn bad presidents successful though. On the subject of displaying player GC spending in any way. This is about as likely to happen as Andy going on vacation (never!).
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| Thursday, March 5, 2015 - 05:37 pm High ranks in Aries' Power Player Rankings can be bought with a credit card: 1. Military Power A player can use a credit card to buy the gold coins necessary for buying population, game cash, and spending boosters. That enables owning lots of military assets. One also could buy other players' countries and CEOs that already own military assets. 2. Space Power A player can use a credit card to buy the gold coins necessary for buying a bunch of shuttles. 3. Wealth Power A player can use a credit card to buy the gold coins necessary for buying game cash. One also could buy other players' countries and CEOs that already own lots of game cash. 4. Financial Power A player can use a credit card to buy the gold coins necessary for buying the financially well-developed countries of other players.
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| Friday, March 6, 2015 - 07:15 am Thanks for sharing Madoff. What do you suggest? Skill will ALWAYS help you sustain the above powers. All 4 rankings would require substantial investment via credit card to develop a lot of power, and it would take further investment to maintain that level of power without skill. If a player does use their own money for that, then they are legitimately a power in the game. I'm not sure if it matters whether these reflect "skill" as much as it matters that they reflect relevant, measurable areas players strive to improve their accounts in. Big military players would likely have to earn their stripes at one point or another anyways. Also - I'm not sure at all why power per gold coin would be particularly beneficial. If a country is well-built, it's powerful no matter how it came to be well-built. I'm a big fan of these rankings, as seemingly are most players who've posted here. I'm always interested in good recommendations that help generate more interest in what's going on with the game.
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| Friday, March 6, 2015 - 08:47 pm Military power, space power, and wealth power would not necessarily require skill to maintain.
I don't share your belief that big credit card spending entitles players to be regarded as powerful. The game isn't going to improve by encouraging pay-to-rank game-playing. Right now I don't have a suggestion for a ranking system. But I would prefer something that values different playing styles. In Aries' pro-military ranking system, players who play in peaceful mode or only as CEOs probably would not rank much total power.
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| Friday, March 6, 2015 - 10:14 pm In one sense, I agree, but in another sense, how are they actually a "powerful player" then? Many players are interested in the financial game, and others are not so interested there. This is easily the best system I've seen (and it will have a section for finance so you'd be able to measure your skill there). I actually disagree and think the game does improve when players pay more. With no skill, credit card warriors come and go, but their assets, activity, and participation do benefit the game. Conversely, players with longer tenure have a huge advantage over new players AND new credit card players. At varying stages, my account has had hundreds of trillions sitting in direct trading that has built up over the years. Any sort of ranking system excluding credit card swipers also should then have to base rankings on tenure as well. That starts becoming way to intensive, convoluted, and unnecessary. Lastly to your point about idle power - I think it's a better representative of capability than anything. You make an interesting point as some sort of "power used" measurement would also be interesting to see.
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| Friday, March 6, 2015 - 11:59 pm i'm not sure its fair to say that finanicial is the true measure of skill, it certainly is A meassure, but assets accumulated over time, is likely a combination of econ and war skill. of course card power can effect these things. now-a-days, its unlikely that a new player will have a large empire of 9 100M plus countries, on 4 dollars a month, which would effect econ power, ofcourse. further, regarding space just being a measure of card power, that certainly is possible, but if you take my 1K shuttles, and 30 docking stations, along with my 100s of thousand of SCMUs, and tons of back up shuttle parts, on only 4 dollars a month, i'd have to point out, that isn't card power. thats econ skill. space is an optional measure of econ skill, with a huge military advantage
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 12:49 am I suggest using ranks that emphasize operations instead of idle assets. That minimizes the potential for pay-to-rank, and highlights skill. To further minimize pay-to-rank, countries or CEOs bought in the previous 12 months should not be included in the computation. Suggested ranks for the aggregated entities of each player:
As this thread shows, power is too subjective and a matter of opinion. For that reason, a composite rank of "total power" would be biased in favor of one playing style or another. Instead, players can read the economic and military ranks and decide themselves who has power.
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 03:13 am Madoff - I truly appreciate the suggestions. Let me attempt to poke holes in them for the sake of debate. I don't really agree that your rankings help show much more than the proposed rankings do. I think the goal of Aries' suggestions was to show the overall power of a player's account in different areas. I understand that some players may not way to feel like they need to compete with pay-to-play players, but the reality is, you're playing the same game they are. On an empire level - they could attack you if you're out of war level protection. On an enterprise level, they can hostile bid your corporations and affect markets you're buying products in. The game already has a "levels" system in several ways, so this would be an easy adaptation that tells a more accurate story of a player's empire, enterprise, and account. My responses to your suggestions: 1. Total Production - A player with more and larger countries likely has paid more to play than a player with small countries. Additionally, production value increases more with higher salaries - so you could have 800 salaries and have TONS of production at a loss. Total production is a statistic that I post when I compile stats - but it doesn't avoid the "pay to play" players. 2. Workers Employed - Larger empires can be bought. Workers employed is essentially the same as "Population + Employment Rate." There also are some beneficial reasons to actually keep hiring at slightly lower than max (95%ish being max in countries) depending on how a player plays. I don't really see a use. 3. Profit doesn't necessarily show financial skill. How do you define profit? Gross profit? If so - does buying ammo or weapons affect that? If not - I would argue a player with a massive war-country that breaks even financially could be extremely skilled but have little to no profit to show for it. Additionally, total profit favors tenured and pay-to-play players in many ways. Finally - profit is extremely volatile. 4. Shuttle flights - I like this suggestion. Flights per real life month or real life week would be interesting to see. I don't really think it shows space capability - but it's an interesting stat. Something like "space utility used." 5. Spoils of war - Don't think this at all shows military skill. 90% of conquered assets come from raiding inactive players.
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 03:32 am along with #4, what would be really useful, and interesting, would be fights from particular planets and space stations, to show us where the most activity is, in terms of space trade, it'd be similar info to supply/demand, graphs we can pull up for each product, a record of activity
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 04:16 am Casual Industries: An inventory of idle assets is not a persuasive show of power. My suggested ranks focus on action, not on idleness. I never said my suggestions guarantee 100% that there won't be pay-to-rank. But my suggested ranks showcase gameplaying that is nowhere near as easily bought with a credit card as the idle assets of Aries' ranking system. To rebut: 1. Total production. Regardless of salaries, total production shows market share. One could call that market power. 2. Workers employed. Regardless of the setting for hiring, the workforce is the central part of the economy. It's odd that you regard workers as irrelevant to gameplay. 3. Profit. Regardless of playing time, more skilled players get a higher return on assets. I define profit as the line item for profit in the financial statement of countries, and the line item for total profit in the financial statement of corps. 4. Shuttle flights. Missions show intergalactic market participation. Idle shuttles don't. 5. Spoils of war. Conquering player-owned countries takes far more military skill than does a stockpile of idle military assets. My suggested ranks aren't about power. They are about successful participation in the game.
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 04:38 am I appreciate where you're coming from, Madoff. My last comments here. 1. Sounds fine. You made arguments repeatedly against pay to play players having an advantage. This is an area they have an advantage. 2. Workers employed - I'm not sure what workers employed actually shows. Why not just show population and production? Those both show clearer statistics. 3. Profit - I disagree in that I think profit only applies to those 100% focused on eco. Profit per corp would be interesting, as could be income per citizen. 4. Shuttle flights - per my last post, I liked your idea here. 5. Spoils of war - again - I totally disagree. Just because a player "owns" a country doesn't mean it's defended. Inactive, player-controlled countries are the easiest targets. A country I currently own, I took from an inactive player. I received quite literally zero resistance, and would have had more trouble with an introductory level computer country. I came out ahead 60 million population and hundreds of thousands of missiles. A better suggestion along the lines of your "activity" theme - it would make far more sense to have some sort of "enemy weapons destroyed" rating. I would far prefer some sort of power index here though, as "wars" are most interesting when fought between sides of similar strength.
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 07:07 am There is still nothing I would change about my original suggestion. Some of these other categories would be great in a, separate, "empire stats" leader-board. That would also be a good game addition but I believe a Player Power Ranking is a more needed addition. For players, the stats I suggested are ideally suited for the purpose of knowing roughly the holdings and capabilities of a player. This is important when knowing "who you are messing with" as someone once said. Further, the accumulation of assets reflected in some of these measurements are, often, all players have to show for months of game-play between penalties removing them from competitively competing from a monthly award. This can work to keep the game interesting where, otherwise, progress may be hard to see.
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 02:08 pm The concept would encompass rankings specific to players, enterprises, countries and empires. So suggestions for all 4 categories are appreciated. Of course some rankings will be influenced by how much someone has spent on the game, this is unavoidable. But we will make sure to include as many 'pure' rankings as we can. Thanks for the in-depth discussion it will help us a lot when we get to the decision making stage on this.
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| Tuesday, March 10, 2015 - 05:01 pm This segment from Aries' post: "Further, the accumulation of assets reflected in some of these measurements are, often, all players have to show for months of game-play between penalties removing them from competitively competing from a monthly award" is where the whole point is. These rankings would be the single most welcome change in the years I've been playing this game. It will give new drive to many players and would affect deeply and positively many aspects of the game like forum interaction, alliance building etc.
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| Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - 09:23 pm Aries they need to make you a gamn master your very good at coming up with thing that would make this game better
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| Monday, November 2, 2015 - 04:38 am This suggestion is still good.
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| Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - 11:32 pm I like these suggestions Aries. It would allow players with large Empires across multiple planets to gauge how good their empire is compared to others of nearly equal (large empires).
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| Monday, November 9, 2015 - 10:07 pm I know space power is added to this ranking system, but I don't believe it should be as effective towards the overall score as much( the way it currently stands ). There are some players I see on this list I believe would be above me if it wasnt for space power. Yes moving large assets in a short time is very effective when using a multi world empire. You can buy cheap products on one world, move and sell them for profit on another. While creating economic growth in those worlds cooperating with eachother. Although I wouldn't believe most of the players here even use space for those reasons.( most not all ) Possibly adding docks that're in space stations as owned should be added to the score along with space shuttles. Players who own multiple docks have more buying and selling power on the space trade. I've sold and bought products off of the space trade. worth probably over 80gc so far in trades, isnt much but it's something. An example for how I'd put it 2 owned docks = 1 SP 4 owned docks = 2 SP 8 owned docks = 3 SP 16 owned docks = 4 SP Leasing a dock.( this doesn't need to be used because it's renting not owning it's just a thought )You're paying 5gc a month. 2.5% of owning one for 200. Although you're paying rent too. So let's just take it as a year 60gc. Round off 60x3=180 to 200. 6 leased docks = 1 SP 12 leased docks = 2 SP 24 leased docks = 3 SP 48 leased docks = 4 SP This is just an example. I think should be added to space power. Tell me your thoughts on this if it should be relevant or not. Spending gc on space docks and leasing can add up to a lot of gc spending. If this was to be put into the score, the required number of shuttles for each rank should be increased from their current standings. Shuttles will still add to the overall space score, but shouldn't be as effective in the score from docks. Shuttles only add for the size and speed of moving products, but that's about it. They have no other major use, so they should be ranked lower( more shuttles per rank ) Most players wouldn't lease up to more then 6 docks, this should be a part of the score. It shows who has the assets in gc to be able to support multiple leases, or ownership of docks. This section isn't relevant to my post I do however believe @madoff, if a player simply swiped a card to gain more gc that they could buy docks and not worry. Although I believe players can still gain gc from space trade. Hopefully space market will expand as more players get on. I actually do support the spenders obviously. It will stimulate trade if they're willing to spend some of the gc in space. Any player with a brain can add 400,000 population a game month per world if they have the slaves to transfer. So spending gc on pop isnt much more effective from slave transfers. You wouldn't need to be very active either. Just set a time to do a war and do that war, the population gained should last a day or 2 real time. Get on every 4 hours, check your things, add the pop. Get off. Effectively, I gain 1.6 million population per game month total when im on( this is an irrelevant example of skill over spending ) So I do believe skill has more of an effect from paying cash. Although I do know what you're saying. I hate pay-to-win games. I believe this isn't a pay to win game.
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| Monday, November 9, 2015 - 10:15 pm Edit: The top section of my last post. The second sentence is not relevant to this post. That was referring to another post. https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/1/25215.html?1447097515
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| Tuesday, November 10, 2015 - 03:55 pm Zen, I didn't make pay-to-win an issue. I said I'm against pay-to-rank. Most assets can be bought indirectly and easily with a credit card. A ranking scheme that measures assets can merely reflect credit card use. By comparison, the Madoff Ranking System emphasizes operations. Operations are more skill-oriented than idle assets. For example, you mentioned space. The Madoff Ranking System measures shuttle flights. That's more relevant than stockpiles of space assets.
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| Friday, December 25, 2015 - 12:26 pm Have you played some of those other MMP online games? Most of them have dropped any pretense at fair play and gone completely 'pay to win'. They often see free players as a bad thing; wasting their precious resources (bandwidth, server time, etc.). But free players are tolerated as potential payers. So they rely on a small group of wealthy players dominating the game. It makes for a lot of rage quitters, but one has to admit, the companies make money off their game. Don't get me wrong; I'm totally against 'pay to win' games. I hate them. But I also understand that this is a business, and what business doesn't like money?
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| Friday, December 25, 2015 - 04:18 pm Honestly, that is what makes this game pretty good. That it really hasn't become pay-to-win. There is certainly pay-to-bail-yourself-out and pay-to-get-a-few-things but the lion share of assets has been earned in game and assets only convert to power with a considerable amount of skill. The "Madoff Ranking System" is not finished yet. There is no way to rank yourself with it or compile a group of player rankings with it along with analysis that would follow that would tell if it is truly a good ranking system. The rankings I posted at the top of this thread work right now. You can go to your account data and find out your various power levels and determine your Total Power Level (TPL) today. It is also possible to compile the data from other players, as I have done here: https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/1/25215.html?1447160799 Based on the data, it is easy to determine likely play-style of different players between a war-focus and econ, as I did on the bottom of that thread. It was also to see who had more military assets, who had a lot of reserve cash, and who brought in more monthly profit. Players already measure themselves against others according to this system and it is providing motivation to play beyond the limitations of the current world ranking system, which was a key goal.
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| Thursday, December 31, 2015 - 02:45 pm I agree with Aries.
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